hello i'm tom hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight the big picture the state of minnesota is just hours away from stepping into its second week of the actually they've just resolved their second government shutdown. we'll see if this is going to affect the other states and another on a budget talks took place on the on the hill today yet no deal was that is the fate of our nation really rests on a battle of egos republic between republicans and democrats and they've gone from

buying their way into college universities or buying their own laws i'll tell you how the koch brothers are using their billions to literally write legislation for one makers. getting to know this another day another round of debt ceiling negotiations another no go on reaching a compromise that would prevent the united states from defaulting on its financial obligations on august second but there's been no lack of drama in washington as last night's meetings ended with reports of house majority leader eric cantor and president obama facing off in a heated exchange of words and today treasury secretary tim geithner a lot like one lawmakers but they're running out of both time and options. we've looked at all available options and we have no way to get congress more time to

solve this problem and we're running out of time and the eyes of the country are on us and the eyes of the world around us and we need to make sure we stand together and send a definitive signal we're going to take the steps necessary to avoid default and also take advantage of this opportunity to make some progress in dealing with our long term fiscal problems we don't have much time it's time we move. if congress doesn't raise the cap on its fourteen point three trillion dollar debt ceiling by august second and is not able to pay off all its bills the consequences could be catastrophic starting with interest rates by king on u.s. debt and the government having to decide what benefits not to pay out and many economists have gone on the record this week saying that a default could very well spark of the recession in america the caribbean is behind this ongoing debate between democrats and republicans in washington really boils down to just one thing in any quality president obama and the democrats want to

raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires to avoid making cuts in entitlements and with the hope of decreasing income inequality in the united states or the republicans are working for more even more economic inequality in this country hasten point minnesota state government minnesota has been shut down since july first and the republican controlled legislature in the democratic governor could not agree on how to close a five billion dollars budget gap democratic governor mark dayton wanted to raise taxes on rich people which are today at historic lows but the republicans in minnesota said that they would not allow any millionaires in the state to pay even one penny more for thirteen days tens of thousands of government employees were furloughed state services came to a grinding halt and the state lost millions of dollars in gravity until the state's bars began to run out of beer and cigarettes this week and so today minnesota's good democratic governor mark dayton blinked and now it's that he will accept a republican proposal and instead of taxing millionaires will kill off seven

hundred million dollars in payments to public schools millionaires one school kids zero there's a larger picture here that minnesota is going to become part of the more unequal america richer are getting richer the poor are getting poorer b.b.c. have an interesting article interesting story and maybe see online on the b.b.c. do you see the why do americans die younger than it's an interesting question not only do we die younger than britons we do. younger than the french we die younger than many europeans are actually and we die younger than the japanese and actually the outcomes in the united states over the last three decades have been getting worse rather than better they've been getting better more slowly than in other nations so relatively speaking we're getting worse so why the article explains that it's because of income inequality here's the this is the life expectancy you can see in the u.s. the u.k. canada australia japan so they asked the question well why you know why is life expectancy so different so different and that has to do with inequality canada is

very familiar with us and in fact earlier this year just a few months ago the parliament of canada passed this resolution this house notes the findings this is siamese a smaller income differences between rich and poor have fewer health and social problems such as teenage words by a once mental illness and drug abuse further notes of such societies have higher levels of trust between citizens and more social mobility that says in the american dream right you too can become rich and therefore encourages the government to promote policies that reduce income inequality in two thousand and seven researchers will richard wilkerson and kate pickett put together a book actually it's the second that they've written they've been doing this work for almost two decades this most recent book is called the spirit level by greater equality makes society stronger it's based on over twenty years worth of data they looked at twenty developed nations and they looked at every single state the united states the biggest full of charts and graphs comparing them up and they compared every one of the states against each other and what they found was that the more an

equal society was the minority view you had a lot of poor and a lot of rich the worst outcomes you had in for example infant mortality here's infant mortality you see very low in for mortality japan in sweden this is you know deaths and inequality here's the usa out here worst infant mortality worst inequality in the next what imprisonment rates in prison rates again the more equal countries less imprisonment singapore by the way is a very. country and just like the usa has very high levels of of imprisonment teenage pregnancy rates teenage pregnancies japan denmark no one's norway germany for it all down here usa way up here we're one of the worst in the world we're also on income inequality the most unequal in the world. homicides homicide rates again here these are the same thing the more unequal society is right across the borders there's not a. drug abuse for drug abuse rates again usa we're not at the very top

of that but we're very very close to that. and the only countries that are close to us in the countries that are highly unequal so and most important of all the essence of the american dream that's the essence of the american dream the ability to move out of the social class into which you were born the economic class into which you were born the united states is the most these society now by the way this was not the case thirty years ago thirty years ago we were actually one of the most mobile socially mobile countries in the world of the o.e.c.d. countries now we are one of the very worst this is the essence of the american dream so. it's taking a stance not terrorists that we have to worry about some taxes that are going to kill off this country or any of these other things it's inequality it's not illegal immigration it's not our debt it's not any of those things it's inequality in our society and so we need to be having practices and policies put in place that will directly attack affect that could provide a social safety to the bottom and roll back the reagan tax cuts at the top and it

will stabilize our society. so today public schools in the state coffers got screwed in minnesota so the millionaires and billionaires there were protected from a tax hike meanwhile eric cantor walked out of negotiations with vice president joe biden when joe suggested billionaires who own private jets should happen appreciate them over seven years just like airlines instead of just five no tax increases for billionaire private jet owners but how can republicans continue to justify their crusade to ensure that income inequality becomes a permanent fixture of american society you asked for a conservative host of the truth for america radio program and author of

conscientious equity sort offer his take on the issue you know welcome home thank you for having me here to have you here with us how can anyone want to be a rich man in a poor country. i don't get we're talking about here is the essence of the united states is entrepreneurial and so what the democrats seem to want to do and they're sinking deeper and deeper into this let's tax the parents of the rich and to the rich rich no more let's tax our corporations till they leave our shores i mean there's disaster in all of that and we're seeing that so we're going to do it we're going to tax out of american ingenuity i mean this is one hundred log of the fact of the matter is that over the last twenty years entrepreneurial ism in the united states has dropped by almost thirty percent we have fewer people starting businesses and the average business today employs four point three small business four point three people whereas thirty years ago it's seven and a half people but you know before the transition we are seen flatlining of entrepreneurial ism why would that be because in one thousand nine hundred two ronald reagan stop enforcing the sherman antitrust act it led to

a bad explosion of mergers and acquisitions prior to nine hundred eighty two you could drop you could walk into any mall or any downtown in america and every store was locally owned every business was multigenerational family businesses that were small businesses now you can drop out of a plane at one hundred thousand feet and have no idea where you're landing in america and when you land and you look at the main street you still have no idea where you are because because we have monopoly capitalism now reagan has destroyed this country that's what you're describing you know what we have today is this is this culture of gloom and doom because of taxes because of these entitlements of spending when we haven't seen those who are who are the three percent forty to forty three obscenely tax rate we decide we don't have the top income tax rate was seventy four percent when reagan came in during it was ninety one percent the fifty's sixty's and seventy's when all those industries went to all those businesses were built when all those wonderful businesses were built the top income tax rate was ninety one to seventy four percent rate internet down to twenty eight percent and what did the small business people do i was in business in the eighty's

i remember what i did when i noticed that my income tax rate was starting to cross the fifty percent threshold i said forget it i'm not going to take any more money out of the company i'm going to keep at the company i'm going to. it into advertising and we grew the business we took a travel agency in atlanta grew to a five million dollar company in three years basque that's what you know that's what entrepreneurs do but when you drop the income tax rate and they say screw it i'll take the money out and go gamble with it i was straight and guess what we get bubbles because of the american tax rate because of the over regulation american entrepreneurs cancer sillier than you know so we have a self-fulfilling prophecy here with the democrats of over taxing the regulating they're not over that is this is our leaving our shores they're taking that is where we've been really with their home in the starting to see that you know it's not all but it's cranked up to be overseas a lot of american entrepreneurs want to come back home they want to invest here but we're keen sympathising them for investing in america that's what's wrong here you know here's and here's the simple incentive in seventeen seventeen ninety one

alexander hamilton proposed that we start charging tariffs that we say if there's a dollar's worth under government yeah well in fact the terrorist paid for one hundred percent of the federal there was a little income taxes but at the end until the civil war was ready to put it in the sincerity of the federal government to world war one and probably one third of the federal government to world war two we have had from seven hundred ninety three until the one nine hundred ninety s. until clinton did away with it with the deputy oh and now after we have had an average of around twenty six percent import tariff on everything into the united states some things are higher some things are lower we are now our average tariff now is two point one percent you're actually that's why those companies are going you know what's wrong with that it's not that it's two point one percent but it is american exports or is the national champion in two thousand and eight in the u.s. national ticket for year i'll tell you what's wrong is because we don't have access to foreign markets it's not that we need to protect yourself and put our head on every other country in the world is going to protect our markets and well we should demand a look along with democracy or just fine if i don't but i don't we just put up the

same barriers like we used to have and say we will protect our own we need a vision for america engaging with the world and competing in a world it's not had that there's. for two hundred years it's not that americans are uncompetitive it's the world trading system is corrupt and skewed against us all we want is american entrepreneurs access give us access to foreign markets in entrepreneurial isn't in this country will explode you're talking about believe it they have already begun ships china and begging vietnam if you why if you want to do something here in the united states then talk to your members of congress and say we want meet the the hamilton plan back we you know it's a high tariff on all the american way actually that's what they have in brazil and that's what they have in the indian these guys today have a little that's what they have in japan as i have and you point to the acidity of these are many will not the u.k. and germany and japan and japan is a very low tariff market it's just the cultural barriers right trade importing price all absolutely livid european i know it's a very big trouble but you know what we need to do is to let the senators and i think that we agree on a lot of things i mean we want the right thing for this country but for this

country to thrive we need to get back to the hard work and the ingenuity in right now with what's happening with these races is what it is the threat of taxes in all of this huge government of health care of cap and trade and all those sorts of things we are going to have cap and trade will. be what they're getting in other ways by regulating it through the e.p.a. whether we did we might have an explosion in the solar business and it will you know it we have a we have an election two years ago and i think the american people don't want these deficits they want to deal they want to feel good i mean there's a lot of people that skinny comerica is care about the deficit they don't they i mean if you guys are put into a frenzy but the average american doesn't even know what the deficit is you put those bits but they knew what paris is or what it and most and forty seven percent of americans don't pay taxes it's that people people are not anywhere near neal i'm sorry we're out of time it's really great appreciate you dropping by nice to meet you thanks for thanks for being here. steve.

it's the good the bad in the very very sort of thing really ugly first the good but the freedom from religion foundation after texas governor rick perry designated august sixth as a day of prayer and fasting for a nation to seek god's guidance for perry's words and called on governors across america to join him for a religious route to freedom from religion foundation showed rick perry perry a lawsuit arguing that this religious rally violates the first amendment's establishment clause course rick perry is also the guy who advised texans to pray for rain and it actually got drier so he's no stranger to injecting religion and policy kudos to the freedom from religion foundation for standing up for the session happy governor the bad. sarah palin earlier this year paling came under

criticism for her gun rhetoric of lock and load rhetoric following the shooting of congresswoman gabby giffords well a few months later pale and still hasn't learned her lesson by appearing on where else but fox news paling weighed in on the debt limit ago she ations with this. we cannot default but we have to we cannot afford to retreat right now either now is not the time to retreat to the time to reload we reload with reality by giving facts the numbers to the american public so that those of us across the us can start chime in and reading our representatives know that we will not capitulate. to master the run on sentence i suppose the gun she's referring to the needs to be reloaded is the one point at the american middle classes and the very very ugly rick don't google my name santorum. you know bed with usa today santorum double down on signing his name to a controversy a pledge in ohio that compares same sex marriage to bigamy outlaws pornography and

argues that african-american children were better off under slavery santorum wrote i know i speak for my fellow candidates who have signed these letters and saying it is an honor. to be able to do so because that is what a pledge is an oath to honor our word by fellow candidate santorum most be referring to michele bachmann because she's the only other republican to sign the pledge and you have to know when you're in that sort of exclusive company when you've done something very very ugly. coming up how is it that the laws that make it harder to vote and laws that cut taxes on billionaires are popping up in one republican state after another discuss a very private organization that is threatening the political landscape of our nation. twenty four seven live streaming news tells what to do about the ongoing financial hurricane unlimited free high quality videos for download. all the. stories you never

find on mainstream news. going to be. a political. person more aren't done. for months now we've been telling you about all the different ways that the billionaire koch brothers are buying their way into position to control american politics the reports show that since the beginning of two thousand and eleven the

nation is pushed by the koch brothers have developed into legislation and virtually identical form in fifteen different states. how is that possible the answer is out like the american legislative exchange council an organization paid for by corporate sponsors it hosts rather regular gatherings of conservative state legislators around the country alec basically drafts and hands out ready made model legislation that lawmakers attending their summit then take home to their districts and introduce to their state capitals pretty much probative other than the serious threat this poses to democracy it might not be all so bad if these model laws were written by alec to directly benefit the koch brothers other billionaires and their corporate sponsors corporate sponsors even get a chance to vote on alex model legislation at the same summits being attended by the legislators so how is alex model legislation shaping the political landscape

all across the nation one district at a time and how are they getting away with this elaborate puppet show answer here to answer some questions on this is bow tie freelance journalist and publisher of d.b.a. press and contributor to in these times magazine well welcome. so how is alex model legislation shaping the political landscape skate across the country will be here. with. the intent or civil. unions. and its. purpose. is to open the doors for numerous other models. and privatization do compulsory also program. that's pretty amazing i just learned today presses from reading your

piece that paul weyrich was one of the original founders of alec here's a clip of what paul weyrich had to say back during the reagan campaign in one thousand nine hundred eighty we don't have the we don't have this back in one hundred eighty when he was speaking to a group of republican legislators and church he basically said you know. why should we be trying to promote the idea of voting to our influence and our power in politics actually goes as the voting populace goes down and now here we are thirty one years later and after his statement and they are you know the party's model legislations is to cut the number of people who can vote to have it right where you poll we read some soul so. we can use a scoundrel we can use to go on to the air this conversation as well which is a prominent belly. policy member.

it's really quite remarkable how is it that alec went under the radar all these years will i don't there's something wrong with mainstream media but. he did enjoy a little bit of there being or maybe didn't enjoy it but it did he was the focus of some criticism i know in the early two thousand when mother jones magazine ran a number of articles on it and defenders of wildlife and another organization also started look at what's called elliot rodger's which created. reports called it lethal trojan horse in the states since about two thousand and three when pretty quiet as far as coverage elica is concerned and ultimately the mainstream media's coverage of alec goes. it might be worth noting that. most if not all of it is by major media conglomerates on this in this nation now are alec

members really. all the networks are talking about. yeah i'm not sure where it stands now is there really an article on this for extra magazine back in i think december last year that outlined all the media groups involved in some of the so. it's why so the companies that own a.b.c. c.b.s. n.b.c. c.n.n. fox they're all alec members that's that's pretty astounding what it it's just the idea of legislators state legislators federal legislators but principally to the folks alec is in the state sitting down with corporate fat cats millionaires and billionaires and having the corporate fat cats vote on what legislation those politicians are going to carry into their state legislatures you know the people like you know scott walker and what not. it seems totally creepy do they do this

you know once a year twice a year they do it in hotels do they do it in secret how do you how do they pull this thing off without somebody going wait what was going on in. very well generally three times a year to the best of my knowledge to have the december nation in space you also have a task or summit and then an annual meeting this year is there our upcoming meetings in new orleans in scottsdale arizona. is it is very clear that they have are all makers sitting there with their representatives working on legislation. which is obviously an arguably for the benefit of members which we as citizens most as sickly and as far as. how their god is and likes media is. already. you look at

all exemptions and shape the state campaign finance interesting laws in many states and they have done is that they've actually written in exemptions for alec scholarship on activity because they claim that such activity is for a legitimate. legislative purpose although it's demonstrably not most of the time as it is and it's hard to resist. as far as the reserves go it's also interesting that it's usually these things usually held in high and i'm pretty sure i was also. amazing. i thank so much for being with us tonight. here it's amazing that this organization's been able to corrupt american politics without notice for all these decades and so the sunlight exposure and publicity could act as a disinfectant and clean up our democratic institutions. crazy

alert the return of the flying spaghetti monster of the nation of austria has now officially tolerate it is now officially tolerant of the fringe religion and church of the flying spaghetti monster three years ago wired for a driver's license and submitted a photo of himself wearing a hostile strainer on his head typical headgear of the worshippers of the church of the flying spaghetti monster people who call themselves pasta fairy and well after three years of review in a mental examination to see if he is fit to drive a car maker finally got approved and received his driver's license complete with a photo of him and his strainer it's only a matter of time before michele bachmann herman cain being warning our nation of the impending threat of pasta fairy and shari'a law. coming out outraged atheists are trying to pull the plug on texas governor rick perry's. they stand a chance. drives

the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions it's competitive to break through get through to people made who can you trust no one who is you in view and with the global machinery see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called satchels when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more. for.

welcome back to the big picture i'm john harbin coming up in this half hour while texas governor rick perry prepares for his nationwide where some of the atheist organizations pushing forward a lawsuit to block the event where christians who want to inject their religion into our nation's politics are fighting back after years of civil war and outright genocide perpetrated by the north south sudan has finally become the one hundred ninety third country in the world i guess joe madison was there to witness the birth of a nation he'll share his experience later in the show. a few weeks ago texas governor rick perry proclaimed august sixth as

a day of prayer and fasting for our nation to seek god's guidance inviting governors from across the nation to join in christian prayer summit and his. as an elected leader all too aware of government's limitations when it comes to fixing things that are spiritual in nature that's where prayer comes in and we need it more than ever with the economy in trouble communities in crisis and people adrift in a sea of moral relativism we need god's. that's why i'm calling on americans to pray and fast like jesus did and as god called the israelites to do in the book of joel . areas just like jesus or god the website promoting the event says that the summit is necessary because as a nation we must come together and call upon jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles because some problems are beyond our power to saul. and wrote yesterday to freedom from religion foundation filed a lawsuit to block the.